He'd been flying for three hours when his body reminded him it wasn't actually designed for this.
Not the wings — those were Vista's, and Vista's things didn't tire the way human things did. It was everything underneath the wings. The wounds from yesterday. The depletion from Ruga. The specific exhaustion of a body that had been asked to do too much across too many consecutive hours and was now submitting a formal complaint.
Max descended.
He landed in a clearing beside a dirt road that wound through ordinary countryside — green hills, farmland, a river visible in the distance catching afternoon light. Normal landscape. No corruption, no black-veined trees, no ambient weight pressing against his senses.
He sat against a tree and let Stage Two release.
Just Max. No transformation, no wings, no silver mark burning. Just a sixteen-year-old sitting in the grass with his back against a tree feeling every injury he'd been moving through rather than addressing.
Vista manifested beside him without being called, which she occasionally did when she felt like it.
She sat cross-legged in the grass, silver hair drifting, and looked at him with the expression she used when she was assessing him medically but wanted it to seem casual.
"You're depleted," she said.
"I know."
"Not critically. But you need food and actual rest before you attempt anything else significant."
"I know."
She nodded and didn't say anything else, which was its own kind of care.
They sat together while the afternoon moved and the countryside was quiet and nothing required anything from either of them for a little while.
The village appeared an hour down the road — small, maybe forty or fifty houses, the kind of settlement built around a crossroads where enough travelers passed that a market and an inn made practical sense.
A wooden sign read: **Maren's Crossing.**
Max walked in looking exactly like what he was — a teenager who'd been through something significant and hadn't slept properly in longer than he could accurately calculate.
The village was active with early evening rhythm. A blacksmith finishing his day's work. Children chasing each other between houses. The smell of cooking coming from somewhere that made his stomach respond with immediate and emphatic interest.
Nobody paid him particular attention, which was a relief.
He found the inn easily — one of the larger buildings near the crossroads, warm light in the windows, a sign with a painted bed that left no ambiguity about the establishment's purpose.
Inside, a woman behind the counter looked up from her ledger.
She was perhaps fifty, practical build, the expression of someone who'd been running a business long enough that nothing people walked through her door looking like especially surprised her.
"Room?" she asked.
"Room," Max confirmed. "And food if there's any available."
"There's always food available. That'll be four copper for the room, two for dinner."
Max reached into his coat and found the small amount of currency he'd had on him since Shadow Utopia — Akio had given him a modest amount when he'd first arrived, practical preparation for whatever came next.
He placed six copper on the counter.
She swept it up with the efficiency of long practice and handed him a key.
"Room three. Dinner in an hour."
The room was simple. Bed, window, a small table with a candle. Exactly what was needed and nothing unnecessary.
Max sat on the bed and didn't move for a while.
Vista had retreated back into the blessing rather than maintaining physical form, which she did when she determined he needed space rather than company. He appreciated that she could tell the difference.
He looked at his hands.
They'd been through a considerable amount in the past twenty-four hours.
He thought about Rei. About Valentine. About Momo's eyes in the ash. About Akio and Zero and the settlement they'd spent centuries building that had taken one morning to destroy.
He let himself think about it without trying to convert it into something useful.
Just grief. Doing what grief did.
After a while he heard the sounds of dinner preparation from downstairs and his body overrode everything else with the very straightforward message that it had been an extremely long time since he'd eaten and philosophy could wait.
The dining room had maybe a dozen people in it — travelers, a few locals, the comfortable mixed atmosphere of a crossroads inn.
Max took a table in the corner and a young man about his age brought out bread and a stew that smelled significantly better than it looked, which turned out to be the correct priority.
He ate.
Not quickly, not slowly. Just ate, which was something he hadn't done without simultaneous urgency or combat readiness in what felt like weeks.
"You're heading somewhere."
He looked up.
The young man who'd brought his food was still nearby, apparently having decided that the quiet stranger in the corner was worth attempting conversation with. He had an open, curious face and the particular ease of someone who'd grown up in a place where travelers were normal enough that talking to strangers wasn't notable.
"Lily Kingdom," Max said.
The young man's eyebrows went up.
"Long way."
"Yeah."
"What's in the Lily Kingdom?"
Max considered how to answer that honestly without requiring extensive explanation.
"Answers," he said.
The young man nodded like this was a completely normal reason to travel a significant distance, which Max appreciated.
"You'll want to take the eastern road past Maren's Crossing. It connects to the main route about two days walk south. Faster if you have a horse."
"I'll manage."
The young man glanced at Max's travel-worn appearance with the specific assessment of someone deciding whether to ask a question they were curious about.
He decided against it, which showed good judgment.
"I'll get you more bread," he said instead.
"Thank you," Max said genuinely.
He slept for eleven hours.
No dreams he remembered. Just darkness and then morning, the specific quality of rest that came from genuine depletion finally being addressed, his body conducting its repairs without interruption.
He woke feeling more human than he had since before the attack.
Still carrying everything. But carrying it with more capacity than yesterday.
Vista was sitting on the windowsill in her physical form when he opened his eyes, watching the village morning with the particular attention she paid to things she found interesting.
"Better," she said without turning.
"Better," he agreed.
He got up and washed his face with the basin water, which was cold enough to complete the process of waking him thoroughly. He looked at himself briefly in the small mirror above the basin.
He looked older than sixteen.
Maybe that was accurate now.
He went downstairs and ate breakfast — eggs and bread and something hot to drink that the innkeeper's wife described as tea but which had a flavor profile suggesting a creative interpretation of the category.
It was fine. It was warm. He finished it.
He put his coat on, settled his silver katana across his back where it rested naturally now, and stepped out into Maren's Crossing's morning.
The eastern road was visible from the inn's door, winding south between the hills, ordinary and unpretentious and leading somewhere he'd never been.
He started walking.
Vista walked beside him in physical form, which she'd apparently decided was appropriate for the day's travel, silver hair catching morning light.
"You should know," she said after a few minutes, "that the Lily Kingdom's relationship with sui energy means its practitioners are considerably more sensitive to emotional states than people in other kingdoms. Walking in carrying what you're currently carrying will be—"
"Noticeable?" Max said.
"Considerably noticeable."
"Good," he said. "I'm done pretending I'm not carrying it."
Vista looked at him.
Something in her expression shifted toward something warm that she didn't comment on.
They walked south.
The hills rolled out ahead of them, green and ordinary and completely indifferent to what Max was carrying or where he was going or what the Lily Kingdom might contain when he arrived.
He found that indifference comfortable.
Not everything needed to acknowledge the weight.
Sometimes a road was just a road and walking it was just walking and the destination would be whatever it was when he got there.
He walked.
End of Chapter